Army's a legacy thing. Army and Navy are/were the two programs the Big East/AAC goes to first for membership considerations. It's almost "right of first refusal." It goes way back, too. Back into the 70's before the Big East when Temple's Ernie Casale tried putting together an eastern conference, and then Joe Paterno's Super East, Army and Navy were major players. When the Big East conference decided to get serious on football sponsorship, it went to Army and Navy.

I can't see Army ever getting squeezed out of that bloc. Even if BYU and AFA come in, room will be made for Army if they want to be there.

They just...don't want to be there.

I certainly don't begrudge AFA any for sticking around the MWC, but when they were having their Big East courtship, that version of the Big East was more like old MWC than what the MWC was looking to turn into. AFA's at its best with system schools and flagships with a dash of private schools. The Big East, with TCU, Navy, Rutgers, UConn, USF, Louisville, Cincy, WVU, Temple...when the MWC is "backfilling" with WAC, it wasn't as thrilling as what was potentially happening back east.

Also, Navy wanted to be in the south/west of the AAC because that's one of their biggest recruiting regions. They've got the east covered with Notre Dame, Army, and whatever crossover games they'll get. It's a good gig, even if it wasn't what they originally wanted.

Army's a legacy thing. Army and Navy are/were the two programs the Big East/AAC goes to first for membership considerations. It's almost "right of first refusal." It goes way back, too. Back into the 70's before the Big East when Temple's Ernie Casale tried putting together an eastern conference, and then Joe Paterno's Super East, Army and Navy were major players. When the Big East conference decided to get serious on football sponsorship, it went to Army and Navy.

I can't see Army ever getting squeezed out of that bloc. Even if BYU and AFA come in, room will be made for Army if they want to be there.

They just...don't want to be there.

I certainly don't begrudge AFA any for sticking around the MWC, but when they were having their Big East courtship, that version of the Big East was more like old MWC than what the MWC was looking to turn into. AFA's at its best with system schools and flagships with a dash of private schools. The Big East, with TCU, Navy, Rutgers, UConn, USF, Louisville, Cincy, WVU, Temple...when the MWC is "backfilling" with WAC, it wasn't as thrilling as what was potentially happening back east.

Also, Navy wanted to be in the south/west of the AAC because that's one of their biggest recruiting regions. They've got the east covered with Notre Dame, Army, and whatever crossover games they'll get. It's a good gig, even if it wasn't what they originally wanted.

They are in the eastern Patriot league (with Navy) for other sports. That makes plenty of sense in terms of travel and the level of competition Army can withstand.

Of course, Army, Navy, Air Force Academies have issues with recruiting, since recruits aren't allowed to major in basket-weaving, they have to be capable of being trained to be military officers. And there is a 4-year commitment to the military following graduation.So it's quite astruggle to compete at the D-1 FBS level in football, although Navy and Air Force have done a much better job,while hampered with the same recruting constraints.

So Army is FBS but scheduling ??? Of course, they will play Navy and Air Force in the "Commander-in-Chief tournament".And they may play an FCS school or two (whatever is permitted).Then they HAVE to play FBS teams (about 9 of them !) Who should they play ? If it was up to them, some crappy teams.... the bottom of the MAC ??? The bottom of CUSA ? The bottom of the Sun-Belt ?

If they can't compete at FBS football, just admit it, and go play in the FCS (Patriot League) or something.Otherwise, why not join an FBS conference and do whatever you can to improve the competitiveness of the team (copy whatever Navy does) ?

I also like the 4-pod system that tkalmus proposes. Gets Cincy out of the West.UMass, UConn, and Temple are natural rivals.Gets all the intra-military games in there.BYU already has a rivalry with Air Force, and BYU gets a home....

So Army is FBS but scheduling ??? Of course, they will play Navy and Air Force in the "Commander-in-Chief tournament".And they may play an FCS school or two (whatever is permitted).Then they HAVE to play FBS teams (about 9 of them !) Who should they play ? If it was up to them, some crappy teams.... the bottom of the MAC ??? The bottom of CUSA ? The bottom of the Sun-Belt ?

Notre Dame, Temple, and Rutgers are frequenters on the schedule, though not staples. There's history with them all.

Army has no problem stacking up multiple FCS games, which won't go over well in years when they might be remotely good enough to get a bowl game. They have Yale and Fordham this year...I suspect Patriot League teams will be making numerous cameos on the schedule once those other PL schools get up to the right level (and appears to be the case, as Fordham shows up again next season, and a potentially fully-stocked Lafayette College club in '16).

Army's fine shlepping it with all of these private schools, too. Looking at the past couple of years, you see Rice, BC, Stanford, WF, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Tulane, Duke...and that's not coincidental. Army's AD is as much a snob as he is a realist. He looked down on what Navy decided to do...more so because of the schools they were associating with.

Did anyone else catch June Jones', head coach at SMU's comments about the Group of 5 moving to spring football? The idea was quickly squished but it's an interesting concept that might not be a bad idea exploring as the big boys increasingly squeeze them out. Sure it goes against 100 years of tradition and would mean that the little guys would never match up against the big boys but I'm certainly intrigued at the idea of the little guys claiming April, May, and June for themselves and having their own tournament and title and the television spotlight for a change.

Did anyone else catch June Jones', head coach at SMU's comments about the Group of 5 moving to spring football? The idea was quickly squished but it's an interesting concept that might not be a bad idea exploring as the big boys increasingly squeeze them out. Sure it goes against 100 years of tradition and would mean that the little guys would never match up against the big boys but I'm certainly intrigued at the idea of the little guys claiming April, May, and June for themselves and having their own tournament and title and the television spotlight for a change.

I'm all for it but I'd make try to stage a crossover game between the two leagues once in the fall and once in the spring.

For example: Have a school like Texas play a full 9 game schedule, plus 2 major OOC games but allow them to play a school like Rice (who could use this as fall ball/training) early in the season and then Texas in return could play at Rice in the spring (spring ball/training).

I think these games would be more interesting than traditional spring games and it would/could benefit both sides. If an upset ever happened, image the chip on the shoulder of the P5 school and the build up of the rematch in the spring.

_________________Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

Did anyone else catch June Jones', head coach at SMU's comments about the Group of 5 moving to spring football? The idea was quickly squished but it's an interesting concept that might not be a bad idea exploring as the big boys increasingly squeeze them out. Sure it goes against 100 years of tradition and would mean that the little guys would never match up against the big boys but I'm certainly intrigued at the idea of the little guys claiming April, May, and June for themselves and having their own tournament and title and the television spotlight for a change.

I'm all for it but I'd make try to stage a crossover game between the two leagues once in the fall and once in the spring.

For example: Have a school like Texas play a full 9 game schedule, plus 2 major OOC games but allow them to play a school like Rice (who could use this as fall ball/training) early in the season and then Texas in return could play at Rice in the spring (spring ball/training).

I think these games would be more interesting than traditional spring games and it would/could benefit both sides. If an upset ever happened, image the chip on the shoulder of the P5 school and the build up of the rematch in the spring.

I think the spring game idea is brilliant and would actually make spring games actually be meaningful rather than just glorified practices--seriously if schools like Ohio St are going to expect me to pay for the spring game I want a good show. It would mean that the power 5 would have to take the little 5 a little bit more seriously as the little guys will be in mid season form. Keep the spring games local too. WVU you better be scheduling Marshall. Ohio St gets Cincinnati or a MAC school. Florida and Florida St should be matching up against USF and UCF and Miami vs nearby FAU or FIU.

You'd have to come up with a 3-month window where outdoor fields are playable.And they'd be competing for TV air time with college basketball.If they went April, May, June, they'd be competing with the NHL and NBA playoffs (although, those are night games, so maybe not).The kids leave campus in mid-May, so would games be well-attended after school is out ? I don't know....

But TV sports does have a relatively "dead" period between the AFC / NFC championships (mid-January) up until March madness (mid-March),with only the Superbowl and a lot of crap in there.... Could you get attendance in Buffalo for kids to sit outside and watch FB played on a rock-hard frozen field ?

This is a bad idea. This idea was soooo awesome that when the USFL (United States Football League)tried it they were...... of yeah, they are now a defunct entity. The USFL was to have teams that played in the spring, and when they became big, they were to play a world title game against the NFL top team. This is such a bad idea that to even think of it causes my brain to hurt. But lets take a look at it anyway - 1. recruits all go to P5 schools, as noone will want to play anything lower especially since the fall schools would recruit during the spring to fill positions for their fall teams and by the time a kid is in college, the spring guys will then recruit in the fall for the spring. Is this enough of a headache yet? Oh the national letter of intent day for HS athletes is also in the spring and besides the fact that the draft is in the spring too, and an NFL team can't take a guy that is still playing in the middle of his college fb season. Barring the case that no coach in his right mind would coach a team that will loose players in the middle of their spring season to the NFL. Does anyone else have more headaches for this spring insane idea?

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